


CQD MGY

by sophinisba



Category: Titanic (1997)
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, Drabble Sequence, Historical, M/M, Minor Character(s), Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-07 21:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten drabbles for wireless operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, whose love was too slashy for the final cut of the film.</p>
            </blockquote>





	CQD MGY

**Author's Note:**

  * For [claudia603](https://archiveofourown.org/users/claudia603/gifts).



> Thanks to Baranduin for the beta.

She wanted him to stay on land, but he reminded her that the pay was better at sea. He got down on one knee and begged for her hand and for one more voyage. Then he'd come home for good, find a steady job in London, and make an honest woman of her. At the time, he meant it, and she said yes. What he didn't say, what he himself didn't understand then, was that despite it all - the nausea and the noise, the mad hours and the vain passengers - the home he loved best was on the high seas.

*

He was nervous around Jack Phillips that first day, before he realised that his boss might be an arrogant bastard, but he was the same arrogant bastard with everybody - first class or third, underling or captain - and he wasn't hurting anybody. When Captain Smith stopped by the wireless room to welcome them aboard, Jack said _to his face_, "With all due respect, sir, we work for Marconi Company, not for White Star Line and not for you." Harry held his breath, but there was no tirade and no sacking. The next day was Jack's birthday. He was twenty-five and fearless.

*

They only spent a few minutes together at the shift change every six hours, enough time to share a laugh over the latest messages of the absurdly rich. Then one man set to work and the other rushed off to catch a meal or a few hours' sleep. When Harry wasn't working he still heard Morse code in the clanking of engines and silverware, the tapping of drums and dancing feet. He never slept as much as he wanted, but in his dreams he was always at sea, always with Jack. Sometimes his fingers were already moving when he woke.

*

That's how it was that night - he woke with a lurch and a noise he didn't recognize. It was nearly midnight, time for him to start an early shift, so he went to Jack rather than try to get back to sleep. Jack, exhausted from catching up on a backlog of messages, was in no mood to receive more demands from passengers or crew, or weather reports from ships like the _Californian_, so close its signal hurt his ears. He was passing the headphones to Harry when Captain Smith came in and told them to send out the distress call.

*

And then he left them alone to do their job, and do their best not to panic. That got harder once they realised the _Californian_ wasn't receiving their signal. It was half an hour later that Harry suggested using the new code, but there was no real difference between CQD and SOS when the only ships that could hear them were hours away. When he leaned in and said, "It may be our only chance," he was talking about something else, and Jack knew it as well as he did. But Jack only smiled - fearful - and went back to transmitting.

*

He watched Jack tap out CQD, SOS, `struck an iceberg`, and give their position a hundred times. He ran to the Captain with news of the rescue ships, ran back with news of the sinking. The signal grew weaker as the engine room flooded and the generators began to fail, but Jack kept on. `We are putting the women off in the boats`, he tapped. `Engine-room full up to boilers`. By the time the Captain came to tell them every man for himself, there was no electricity left to make a spark, but still Jack refused to leave his post.

*

"Come on, Jack. We've done our part." He held out the lifebelt Jack had yet to put on.

"If I'd done my part before, none of this -"

"Well, and if the Captain and the watchmen had done theirs, but a lot of good that kind of talk will do us now."

At that moment a stranger burst into the cabin and grabbed Jack's lifebelt out of Harry's hand. Before he could think he'd leapt upon the man and knocked him cold.

"Come on," he said, pulling Jack away from the machine. "Come on, I'll take you to the lifeboats."

*

The confusion was even worse on deck, with only two lifeboats left, the ship turned on its end and the water rushing higher. He'd lost sight of Jack, then he lost his footing and fell into the icy black water. He kicked his way to the surface and couldn't understand why he still saw only black, until he hit his head and understood he'd come up under the overturned boat.

_Ah, God,_ Harry cried. His legs were too numb to swim worth a damn, but he knew he wouldn't last long trapped here by himself, so he dove back down.

*

Hands helped drag him back up, and he grabbed at the side of the boat, turned into a raft with a dozen men hanging on as well as they could.

"I'm glad I've got you."

That was Jack's voice, broken up between pain and chattering teeth. It was Jack's hand on his arm.

"I'm glad too."

"You see? That wasn't our only chance."

Then they clung to the raft and clung to each other, and while everyone else watched the _Titanic_ go down, Jack and Harry kissed each other's frozen lips, and Harry knew this was their very last chance.

*

The water kept washing at their limbs, and the lifeboats where they could have got dry stayed far away. Still, they reminded each other of the ships that had answered their call. Even when they were too cold and tired to think whole thoughts, they kept speaking the litany of _Frankfurt Baltic Olympic Carpathia_. But when the rescue finally came, Jack was quiet.

Harry couldn't walk, but his frostbitten fingers could still move. He worked the _Carpathia_'s wireless long into the day, sending messages for the other survivors, but not for himself. There was nothing to say for the dead.


End file.
